judgedreddfandomcom-20200214-history
Hondo City
Hondo City sprawls across the larger island of Japan, seeming to stretch from Hokkaido to Wakayama. Most of its development comes from the Judge Dredd Megazine strip Shimura by Robbie Morrison. While Hondo presents a calm, structured face to the world, there is endemic corruption within both society and the Judge ranks. Description Hondo is the most technologically advanced of the Megacities, and its energy needs are supplied by orbiting nuclear power satellites. As with the other megacities, Hondo is beset with a high population that live in cramped, ever-taller buildings. There is a judicially sanctioned "pleasure quarter" in Tokyo District called Yoshiwara, with the intent of containing and controlling the sex industries. Underneath is Hondo's own undercity, the decayed and buried remains of the original Tokyo that are crawling with powerful oni-like mutants Hondo boasts of its superiority as a society over foreign ,egacities, but it does this often by deliberately ignoring those considered outcasts and in poverty. Officially, these johatsu – "disappeared people", including everyone from homeless vagrants to those hiding from yakuza – don't even exist. The Sanya Sub-District, or Eta District (eta meaning "the filth", traditionally the Japanese underclass), is where those openly ostracised and discriminated against for non-conformity are driven to, including former criminals and most commonly the Burakumin, those whose professions involved them getting close to death (butchers, grave diggers, executioners). They are heavily discriminated against for cultural reasons and suffer criminal exploitation. The yakuza societies run nearly all crime in Hondo, to the extent that they are sometimes seen as maintaining a balance. The yakuza have their fingers in almost all industries, both legal and illegal. The psychotic thrill-killing bosozuki – street samurai – gangs bike around Hondo committing random acts of brutality and atrocity in the hope that the Yakuza will notice and hire them. Several islands off the coast of Hondo live a traditional rural Japanese lifestyle. History Hondo gave aid to Indonesia when it was ravaged by mutated coral, with their world famous techno-wizard Masamune Taoka creating a "cybernetic serpent" that infiltratred the coral and allowed it to be manipulated into city block forms. In return, Hondo forced Indonesia to take tens of thousands of their "undesirables". When the coral Web became crime-ridden, Hondo military forces established a blockade. Megazine 3.19: "The Web" In 2106, the family of a yakuza Oyabun were kidnapped as leverage for a clan merger. As the resulting crime group would be more powerful than the Council of Justice, the Council called in the Culling Crew to murder the family.Wetworks In 2107, the notorious assassin Stan Lee visited Hondo for an assassination job - wiping out an entire yakuza household and the Judge guarding it. Judge-Inspector Shimura, then a cadet, was the only survivor.The Harder They Come Mega-City One had been a rival of Hondo's for years and had placed robot sleeper agents within the city in case of a war. One sleeper was accidentally triggered and began murdering strategic targets, forcing Judge Dredd to try and stop the robot while making sure Judge-Inspector Totaro Sadu did not learn of its origin. Sadu came close to learning the truth.Our Man in Hondo The city joined Luna-1's "Global Lunar Partnership Treaty" sometime in the 2110s, agreeing to guarantee the neutrality of Luna-1 and provide Judicial assistance. In reality it hoped, like all Treaty members, to have influence in the lucrative colony.Eclipse In 2113, Masumune Taoka tried to conquer the city and had to be killed by Judge-Inspector Shimura. Of even greater significance, the Hondo Judges gained their first female member, Aiko Inaba, after (despite pressure) Shimura passed her. During Judgement Day, Hondo's firepower was brought to bear against Sabbat's hordes. Skreemer sonic cannons were deployed to drive the zombies out, using all of the city's power supply in the process. Being the only secure city on Earth meant that Hondo was the site of the pan-judicial conference about the crisis and later the staging point for the strikeback. A Judge strikeforce donned Hondo's Samurai battle-armour to carve their way through the zombies, and Sadu died giving Dredd and Johnny Alpha their chance to kill Sabbat. (The victory came just in time as the zombie hordes had finally broken into Hondo, with Hilda McGruder and Chief Judge Ohno fighting side-by-side.) During the 2120s, a slum area of the city had become known as Ronin District after Shimura began defending it from street criminals. In 2123, Hondo joined Mega-City One and Brit-Cit in presenting a united front against the alien Law Lords. In the event of the Lords arriving on Earth, Hondo will go to war against them.Lawcon Judge Dredd made a return visit to the city in 2126 after a prominent Hondo figure, the Shogun's Executioner, had covertly murdered yakuza witnesses under Mega-City protection. Dredd recruited Shimura to kill the Executioner on the city's behalf.Executioner Taoka's daughter, former vid-star Amber Taoka, had inherited her father's company and by the 2120s had a public desire to seperate it from his legacy, which by this point included a murderous cyborg cult named Deus X. The organisation made a public display of terror by butchering everyone onboard the bullet train before targeting Amber, who was defended by Shimura and Inaba. She took the ronin as her personal bodyguard and lover, being powerful enough that Justice Department looked the other way. In 2127, Taoka used the resources of the Corporation to reclaim and detoxify the Radlands of Ji in the hope of making it liveable again. Stan Lee led a coalition of Radlands' gang emissaries in a retaliatory strike, battling Shimura, Inaba, and Dredd before he was defeated.The Harder They Come Justice Department liaised with the Otomo Institute to create a generation of high-power psi Judges, culminating in Judge Junko Asahara. The program ended when Inaba and Asahara discovered that Gideon Otomo was a madman plotting to install his pupils in strategic places across Hondo, so he could potentially take over. After an attempted yakuza takeover of Mega-City One's Low Life, Dirty Frank was given permission to take a "Long Walk" to Hondo and take down the gang in question, as well as arrest and return corrupt Judge Aimee Nixon.Low Life: The Deal The mythical Forty-Seven Ronin were resurrected as monstrous undead in 2133, butchering their way across Hondo. Judges The Judge-Inspectors are highly disciplined and well-armed, and are similar in mindset and culture to ancient samurai. Their uniforms have bio-circuitry links allowing them to use their tendo stave weapons (a form of bludgeon and also a hidden built in laser rifle.) and laser-shuriken discs as extensions of their own bodies. In following their samurai leanings, energy-based sabers, futuristic nunchucks and traditional katanas are also used. Unlike foreign Judges, they wear no badge with their name on; their names are printed on the rising sun symbol on their uniforms, viewable only through the visor on another judge's helmet, with the intent that the citizens see justice as one entity rather than a group of individuals. Originally they piloted high-speed Japanese versions of Mega-City One's Lawmaster cycles, but they have recently upgraded to hovercycles. Traditionally the city was ruled by a chief judge but in more recent stories the head of state is now known as the Shogun Judge. Despite their high discipline, the judge-inspectors have the freedom to conduct sexual relationships unlike their American counterparts, and the law in Hondo seems slightly less harsh. The Justice Department suffers from infiltration by elements of the yakuza societies, leading to corruption and inefficiency – nearly every district house in Hondo has a yakuza judge in its command strata. The yakuza societies and many elements within the judiciary view each other as a necessary evil in order to maintain a balance in Hondo. In an encounter with yakuza infiltrators, Inaba was told that the Chief Judge was a mere figurehead and it was those around him that wielded the real power.Shimura: Outcast Intense institutionally sexism meant it took until 2113 for the first female Judge to be drafted. While others would follow, Inaba and others could be given the crapper jobs. Hondo's equivalent of the Special Judicial Service is the Tokko Division, which can enforce seppuki. They wear a black version of the usual uniform. As with the Council of Justice, they were often more concerned with the look of things than following the actual law: in 2217, they allowed a conflict between Shimura and a crime syndicate to play out to rid Justice Department of the 'shame' of a ronin.Megazine #75 (Vol.2) References Category:Locations Category:City